The present invention pertains to the field of cable modems. More particularly, this invention relates to securely configuring a multi-user cable modem.
Among the most promising new approaches to Internet access is the cable modem. Cable modem technology expands on existing cable television technology. Cable television networks are widely available, and the data rates possible over cable television lines are dramatically higher than over telephone lines. For example, one emerging cable modem technology can provide data rates from 25 to 1000 times faster than with traditional modems.
Unlike the point-to-point connection provided by traditional modems however, cable modems share network resources, or bandwidth. In this respect, cable modem networks are similar to many local area networks (LAN), such as an Ethernet. If one user sends or receives data over the network, less bandwidth is available for other users. In other words, one cable modem can interfere with other cable modems on the same network.
In which case, a cable service provider has an incentive to prevent certain configuration settings from being changed within cable modems so that all users have an opportunity to use the shared network resources. For instance, if one cable modem is configured to transmit at a higher output power than other cable modems on the network, the higher power cable modem could drowned out the other modems contending for access.
On the other hand, unlike normal cable television boxes, certain users may also need to configure some settings on a cable modem. For instance, if a business couples multiple computers to one cable modem, the business may need to re-configure the cable modem each time a computer is added or removed, or each time a new user is granted access to the cable modem. Similarly, an individual computer user may need to configure certain settings on a cable modem. For instance, if an employee tele-commutes from home, he or she may want to configure his or her cable modem to allow co-workers to access his or her machine over the cable network.
In each of these examples, and countless other situations, multiple users may want or need to configure various aspects of a cable modem and/or prevent others from configuring or re-configuring aspects of a cable modem.
A configuration editor receives requests to access a configuration area for a cable modem. Each configuration area corresponds to a particular user type. The configuration editor can then retrieve configuration data corresponding to the configuration area for the particular user type.
An area editor selects data fields corresponding to configuration data, and allocates the data fields to one or more configuration areas corresponding to particular user types.
Other features and advantages of the present invention will be apparent to those skilled in the art from the accompanying drawing and the detailed description that follows below.